A Tale of Demigods, Mortals, and Love
by sadie-leona
Summary: A Tale of Demigods, Mortals, and Love Maui and Moana have been sepearted for four years and a new enemy threatens the ocean and everything in it. Maui and Moana reunite to tackle the monster and discover the next phase of their relationship. (MoanaxMaui)
1. ONE: Stubbornness

_A Tale of Demigods, Mortals, and LoveI_  
Maui and Moana have been sepearted for four years and a new enemy threatens the ocean and everything in it. Maui and Moana reunite to tackle the monster and discover the next phase of their relationship. (MoanaxMaui)

 _I have no prior knowledge of the Polynesian islands or any other smiliar peoples. I take creative license with their daily lives_.

Maui had a comfortable home base on Te Fiti. It's lush green rolling hills and mountains. Plenty of food and landscape to retreat to between his demigod duties. Peaceful, he would describe it. He woke up from a long night of uninterrupted sleep and felt the usual pang of sadness, even though it had begun to dull over the last year or two. To a demigod who has lived thousands of years, four years would seem like a flicker in time. However for Maui, these last four drug on. They seemed to be the longest he has ever felt. And he has spent longer in Lalotai.

There was a tumble against the hut and Maui sat up. There was no other inhabitants on Te Fiti besides animals. Perhaps a monkey had gotten the idea to be cheeky. The sound came again. Like rocks hitting the side of the hut. He stood up and walked outside his hut into the morning sun. The _plink_ sounded again towards the side of his hut facing the ocean. He walked around, hook raised, ready to scare off an inturding fur ball.

Maui let out a low chuckle. "Coconuts," he said, glancing at the few that lay next to his hut, and up to the coconut tree above. Attributing them to having just fallen from the tree he turned to retreat back to his bed. Until one hit him squarely in the shin. "Ow!" he cried, dancing around on one foot. He turned towards the direction they had come, away from the coconut tree. Towards the ocean. "What gives?" He yelled towards the water. The ocean had not appeared to him like it did to Moana when they were together. But he always felt like it was there, watching him. Sometimes he felt like it sabotaged him, flooding his hut several times throughout the years. Taking his boat and floating it to the other side of the island.

A tendril of water formed and it poked angerly towards the coconut that had hit him and had since rolled down the beach, back towards the ocean. Maui walked towards it, ticked off to say the least. He picked it up, then stopped, turning it in his hands. He turned towards the smile pile next to his hut, and back towards the island. Before looking back down towards the coconut. It had a mouth. Two eyes. Red and white paint upon what appeared to be a face. Obviously dead. "Kakamora," he breathed, his hair bristling. He tightly gripped his hook and raised it to his side, ready to move. The ocean propelled a spalsh of water towards it, and he had the impression that it ocean wasn't warning him of incomig attack. But of something else.

Maui walked towards the water, looking out towards the horizon. "What," he mubled towards the ocean, or towards himself, "what do you want me to see?" He studied the water far out in front of him. Coconuts. Kakamora, he assumed. Bobbing up and down. All dead. Dozens of them. The Kakamora were strong and brutes for being small coconuts. He had never seen dozens of them just dead, floating. "What did this?" He said to the ocean. "What happened?" The ocean tendril shrugged, then pointed towards his hook and to the sky. "Someone needs saving," he said, almost excitedly. That was his job, afterall. Hero to all! "But who?" he asked. "Where?" The tendril shrugged and formed a familiar tower. "Lalotai," he breathed. Of course whatever worse than the Kakamora had escaped the tower to roam the ocean again. "I'll head there immediately!" He went to raise his hook, to transform to the great hawk, before being splashed in the face by the ocean once more.

"WHAT?" he said exasperated, dropping his hook. The tendril looked at him for a moment before forming a miniature canoe and floating it around the beach. "Why would I sail there if it's faster to fly?" The ocean made a movement that seemed to translate as an angry sigh. The canoe disapeared and was replace by a miniature woman. "Moana?" he asked. And the ocean nodded excitedly. There was a thud in his chest and he looked down to see Mini Maui jumping up and down excitedly. He frowned. "Is she in danger?" The ocean shook its head. It formed the woman again, his fish hook, and a canoe, and moved them all towards Lolatai. "I cannot bring Moana there. It is dangerous!" The ocean deflated and crashed a wave towards him in anger.

The ocean knew he was lying, that Moana could take care of herself. The ocean new why Maui had been avoiding her for so long. He had helped her and her people settle on their new island. His brute strength and size was helpful in the settling. At first he was there every couple weeks, helping where needed. Taking small wayfinding trips with Moana. It was a fun time, less stressful than there adventure defeating Te Kah. That's where the problem lay. He was becoming complacent, ignoring his demigod duties. And then there was the matter of Moana. Weeks turned into months and he could tell she was growing. Just the adventure they had seemed to age her for the better. Mature her. She ruled her people with a steady, kind hand, experience behind her. He was becoming attatched. A feeling he had felt in many, many years. He started spending longer away, the opposite of what his heart wanted. He visited every few months, her maturing becoming more and more obvious. Until he couldn't take it anymore and he stopped visiting. Five years since the day of Te Fiti passed. Four years until he had seen her last.

He couldn't do that to her, it was wrong. He was a thousand year old demigod, immortal. She was a mortal. He was embarassed by the tug in his stomach everytime they were together and ran to hide it. Propelled himself into fights with monsters, helping other humans throughout the ocean. But the tug was always there, ever present.

"I cannot go to her now, I _cannot_ ask her to do this with me. Not now after so long!" The ocean threw a shell upside his head. He touched the knot that formed and swore. The ground beneath Maui trembled and he turned.

Te Fiti was forming before him. A giant green woman sitting before him. She lifted him with her hand to face her. He chuckled nerously, not having seen the woman since she had given him a replacement for his broken hook. "Hey Te Fiti!" The god scowled at him, her other hand holding a pile of Kakamora bodies.

"Maui," she said, although for her size it was more of a bellow. "Something terrible has been released from the land of monsters." She tilted her hand so the Kakamora rained down upon the beach beneath them. "You _and_ Moana are the only hope for us. Go to her and discover this beast and _defeat_ him."

Maui growled and repeated his sentiment: "not _Moana_. I will not put her in danger again!" Heat pulsed through his chest, embarassment. He had abandoned her once to face Te Kah alone. It ate at him almost as much as his heart did.

Te Fiti raised her hand so he was closest still to her face. Close enough for when she talked his hair pulled away from his face. His skin vibrated. "Did you once think that that is not the _only_ time you abandoned her?" Blood pulsed in Maui's ears as his vision became tunneled. Anger. Regret. Before he could open his mouth to reply Te Fiti had set him on the beach and returned to her island form.

"I DID IT FOR HER!" He screamed towards the island for. "I did it for her." he said again. Quietly. For himself. To convince him that was the reason.


	2. Chapter 2: Sadness, Anger, Regret

Tava placed a large, warm hand on his betrothed's shoulder. They looked out over the horizon together, at the large canoes bobbing closer and closer. "When I was a boy I never expected to see ships on the horizon as we do now." He sighed, light and with a smile. "You are an amazing chiefess, Moana. Your people should be so proud. I know I am."

"Thank you, Tava ," Moana smiled as she bent down to feel the waves with her hands. The ocean swirled around her hand in affection. "My- I mean, our people are definitely catching onto to wayfinding well."

Tava picked up a yellow shell the ocean had pushed towards the beach. Moana admired his muscles as he was beant. Wide shoulders and long, muscular arms, Tava was an experienced chieftan's son from the neighboring Malakas island. He was an experienced leader and warrior, tattoos covered his shoulders and arms to detail those achievments. You are not getting any younger, Moana's mother, Sina had told her before her parents brought up Tava as a possible husband. I was younger than you when I became wife to the chief and not long after had you!

Tava was kind enough, and definitely handsome, and Moana had grown to love him, but not in that way. Good friends, perhaps, or a partnership towards a better future for both of their islands. Wayfinding, discovering, and settling their new island of Lataitai over the last five years had left little time for love. Or wayfinding her inner voice echoed sadly. No, she didn't have time for that, either. She had sailed back to Motonui a few times to make sure the sailors she tasked with the trade lines and fishing beyond the reef knew what they were doing. But since then? Nothing more than pleasure sails around the island.

Tava tossed the shell back into the ocean and grabbed Moana's hand, tugging her towards their village. The smells of the feast had wafted towards the beach. The invisible line between her and the ocean stretched as she stepped away. The ocean pushed a wave towards her, the yellow shell landing at her feet. She bent over and slipt in into her skirt and she silently thanked the ocean for trying to connect with Ropati, even though he didn't understand the significance.

Moana sat cross legged on the ground, tightly set between her mom and Tava. The firelight danced off of them as they shared a bowl of roast pork. Her father stood tall in front of the fire, a smile on his face. "People of Lataitai and Motonui and Malakas!" His voice bellowed and the party sounds fell quiet. "We are hear to celebrate the recent proposal of uniting our three islands! Of the uniting of my daughter, of the chief of Laitaitai, Moana, and Tava, son of Pekelo, chief of Malakas!" The people surrounding us whooped and yelled in happiness. Moana and Tava stood up, hands clasped.

"As an outsider," Tava spoke, "I was naturally nervous how well me and my people would be welcomed on your islands. I'd like to say, for my father and the rest of my people that are back on Malakas, I am truly thankful for the kindness shown to me by you all!" He held up Moana's hand and kissed the back of it, causing Moana to blush. "I look forward to being united to thi-" An unsettling mumor begun to spread in the peoples surrounding the happy couple. Moana and Tava turned to see the reason for the suddent interruption.

An unmistakable figure stood in the shadows just outside the light of the fire. Moana's stomach felt as if it was filled with fire when she realized who the silhouette belonged to.

"Maui," she breathed, forcing the wind from her lungs in a manner of disbelief an anger. Her voice had changed, thought Maui. The same, yet different. His name from her lips set a tingle through his body down to his toes.

 _Maui_? the people around her whispered. _Maui? Maui? Maui!_

Maui stepped forward, into the light of the raging fire.

He had a smile on his face, his impossibly white teeth flashing. He rested an elbow on his giant fishook. He was tall, unhumanly tall, he could never blend into the crowd. Shiny, curly back hair fell around his head and onto his shoulders, seamingly connecting towards the tattoos that covered pracically every bit of his tanned body. Swirls accented his impressivly wide shoulders, biceps, and chest. Lines danced across his arms legs, and down his torso, over his stomach muscles, and disapeared into an attracive V that dissapeared underneath his tradtional leaf skirt that was almost comically too short. He was the picture perfect warrior of her people, just as if someone had enlarged him two or three fold. Even his necklace of coconut fiber and mismatched large teeth was ostentacious.

Moana scowled and bit back the bitterness that rose in her throat. She had thought this moment for four years now, even though as of late what she took as an absentminded imortal demigod taking down monsters turned into someone who was purposefully avoiding her and her islands. Even though angry, her stomach flipped. A piece of her floated, happy to see the demigod before her.

Maui lifted his hook and started to walk around the fire, towards Moana. She turned towards Tava to gain her composure and she squeezed his hand before dropping it. Her long curly hair fell over her back. A tattoo now adorned it, but he couldn't tell what is was. Jealousy weighed heavy in Maui, but he held it behind the usual mask of happiness. If Maui tought Moana had grown the last time he had seen her, it paled in comparisson to now. She was taller, fuller. Her torso longer, hips wider. She turned back towards Maui. Her face had filled. Once slim and girlish, her cheekbones were higher, her lips fuller, her eyes even wider and wonderful. _Her chest, too_ , he thought, but pushed that thought away.

"Maui," she said again, strong and loud, opening her arms in a beckoning manner as to reintroduce him to her people, to introduce him to her newly betrothed's people. "Shapeshifter, demigod of the wind and sea! Hero to all!" She tipped her head in a gratious manner. She trembled to be polite, to keep the anger inside her.

"Hey kid," he said, and extended long, impossibly muscled arms towards Moana. Part of her chanted _hug him, hug him, hug him_. _After four years, hug him_! She walked to close the distance and lifted an arm. Maui expected some kind of warm connection. But what he did not expect was a slap. An open handed, surprinsgly strong slap. Both physicall and emotional pain tingled in Maui. He lifted his hand to cover his cheek as he lowered his eyes towards Moana. For a moment he saw a look of sheer surprise in her eyes before they quickly filled with fire and overfilled with tears.

" _Four years_ ," she spat, as if there was a bad taste in her mouth. "Four years and _nothing_!" The last word was an angry whisper, her voice cracking.

"I'm sorry, Mo," Maui offered, half shrugging, half shaking his head. "I got caught up with demigod stuff, ya know? I'm thousands of years old ... those four years just kind of blinked by. I'm sorry!" He gazed at her, trying to work the demigod charm to make her happy. To erase the anger, sadness, grief upon her face.

"Yeah, right," she chuckled without happiness. "As if those four went by in a blink for me?"

She turned on her heels and stalked back to Tava, grabbing his hand and pulling away from the fire, through the group. Maui's already fragile heart broke.

Maui's broken heart shattered when the breeze picked up and whisked Moana's hair away from her back and revealed her tattoo. Te Kah, Te Fiti, and a canoe in the ocean. And above them all, a fishook in the talons of a great hawk spread across her shoulderblades.


End file.
